Sanhill Crane Quartet

Sunday, April 17, 2016

These are my latest works, a trilogy of paintings of Mandarin ducks. Most of the ducks are drakes, male. You can always tell the male duck. They are the most colorful. They have to be beautiful to attract the attention of the females; to keep the duck population alive. And they are pretty to look at. These paintings were executed with Copic pens on 11 x 14 inch vellum bristol.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Now that both of my coloring book journals, WhimsyandFish, Fowl and Four Leggeds, are in print as well in downloadable format, I'm anxious to share my work with the world. One of my first customers gave the books as a gift to our mutual friend, Judy--who told me that she came up with an idea for a children's story after coloring just her third image!

What I enjoy about visual art is that, once I start, I move into a
dimension without time or space. I usually draw animals and I find
myself wondering about what's going on in their worlds. Sometimes we
talk. When I color, I find myself daydreaming--and anything in the image
can be the trigger.

Coloring is a wonderful way to relax and daydream, and with my journals, you'll find I've provided plenty of extra space so that you can extend the drawings, if you like, as well as lined pages on which you are invited to write. A little stream-of-consciousness journaling can be a good thing.

I started my own journal with Whimsy and, while I was coloring the angel on the first page, a lot of silly ideas about angels started coming to me. Who styles their hair? Can they change the color of their wings at will?

Then, when I colored the cover of Whimsy, I felt such sympathy for the weeds the gnome is pulling up. When plants die, I wondered, do they go to heaven or is being turned into mulch their form of reincarnation?

But those thoughts never occurred to me when I was doing the actual drawings, only when I was coloring. It's interesting, visual art is in many ways like writing. The viewer/reader often sees and reads more than the artist/writer intended. Even if the artist/writer is oneself!

To celebrate the publication of Whimsy and Fish, Fowl and Four Leggeds, I'm offering a special discount on the print versions. Just go to my web site, http://joanmansson.com, for the code and the link to my Create Space store. There is no limit to how many books you can buy, and the offer runs until June 30, 2016. In addition, I've lowered the price on the downloadable versions of Whimsy and Fish, Fowl and Four Leggeds to $3.99 each. Of course the samplers are just $0.99.